Dos viejos

We don't get letters delivered where we live, so every morning I have to walk down to the Post Office to check if there's any mail in the apartado de correos. I haven't quite worked out if it's called an apartado because we live apart from the village centre, or because they have to apartar our letters from the ones the postman is going to repartir.

Sometimes, it's a hassle to have to check for cartas each day, especially as nine times out of ten there aren't any. Still, when they allocated us el apartado número seis and I culd tell friends my address was "Number 6, The Village", I think my credibility rose a little, at least among those who remembered Patrick McGoohan.

So I have this daily walk straight down to Correos - housed in la vieja cárcel - and straight back, working up a sweat, which has to be good for me.

I don't usually talk to anyone en el camino. There are maybe half a dozen old guys I see regularly, but we simply mumble un saludo and keep going. And there's just one old woman who does a short walk each day, all on the flat, as far as the polideportivo. I sometimes exchange a few words with her. I don't know why los viejos outnumber las viejas in the village. Could it be that, however old they get, the women are still at home cooking and cleaning, and it's only their maridos who have time to sit on sunny walls and discuss whether "España va bien"?

Unusually, though, today I spoke to two old men.

As I left the post office with my nose in a new poetry magazine, I almost literally bumped into un viejo I didn't recognise. Instinctively, I said hello, only to find his hand thrust at me: "¿me das dinero?"

When I made it clear I wasn't going to hand over any money, he snorted disbelievingly, "¿Que no tienes? Well, you're dressed fine enough!"

That comment was a bit of a surprise. Like I said, I tend to work up a sweat on the walk, and I have to stumble down a weed-tangled bridle-path to reach the road, so it's not like I go to the post box all arregladita. It was also a fact that I had but a scant 5€ on me and was en route to the bank to see si quedaba algo en la cuenta at this stage of the month. So, ignoring him, I headed off to do los recados, and then homewards.

Justo antes de llegar a casa, I saw another old chap who's never done more than grunt. Llevaba a handful of greenery which he thrust at me as our paths crossed. "Huele bien ¿no?"

I obligingly stuck my nose into the bunch of mint and agreed, yes, it did smell good.

"Toma."

I declined, assuring him I had some growing in my garden. Too true. In summer grows four foot high and threatens to swamp everything else.

In some ways, it was una mañana equilibrada: two old men thrusting their hands at me - one to demand something I didn't have, and one to offer something I didn't want.